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The Bargaining Power of MissingWomen:
Evidence from a Sanitation Campaign in India
Yaniv Stopnitzky
NOVEMBER 12, 2011
JOB MARKET PAPER
Abstract
Female bargaining power in rural Haryana, as in much of northern India, is constrained
by widespread discrimination against women. In recent years, however, women
successfully demand private sanitation facilities from potential husbands as a precondition
for marriage. I study this manifestation of bargaining power by modeling latrine
adoption as an investment that males can make to improve their desirability on the marriage
market, and I show that increasing proportions of females with strong sanitation
preferences drive male investment in toilets. Moreover, I demonstrate women’s ability to
secure latrines increases when they are relatively scarce in a marriage market. I test these
predictions empirically by studying a sanitation program in Haryana, India, known colloquially
as “No Toilet, No Bride”. Using a triple difference empirical strategy based on
households with and without marriageable boys, in Haryana and comparison states, before
and after program exposure, I provide evidence that male investment in sanitation
increased by 15% due to the program. Further, the program effect is four times larger
in marriage markets where women are scarce (23%) as compared to marriage markets
where women are abundant (6%). These results suggest the relative scarcity of women
in Haryana has, conditional on women surviving to marriageable age, improved the
ability of the remaining women to secure valuable goods. ...